We are back home, we came home yesterday and couldn’t be happier to be here.  Joel tolerated his chemo very well.  He has been very blessed through this journey to stay so healthy.  On the other hand we didn’t get the ‘good’ side of the room, and we had a horrible roommate.  He was 3 years old and totally out of control.  He screamed all day and a good chunk of the night.  If he was happy he was yelling and laughing extremely loud, if he was angry he was screaming and throwing things.  Then there was his dislike of anyone coming on his side of the room.  He was not to keen on hospital staff and would start yelling when they were around. Each of the rooms has 2 little TVs one for each side of the room. You can also borrow larger TVs from the playroom, which they had done.  Most of the time they had both TVs on, playing loudly.  If we turned Joel’s to the same station we didn’t need the volume on his TV.

He would get rather excited when he’d see Joel, English was obviously the second language of this family, so instead of saying boy when he’d see Joel, he would call Joel a baby.  I explained to Joel that he wasn’t calling him a baby to hurt his feelings but, that he didn’t know to say boy so he would say baby. He would laugh hysterically at Joel and point and say, “Hi baby, Hi baby” (laugh some more) scream and say, “look at the baby, look at the baby!”  Joel would furrow his brow and look at me.  Sometimes when it got too loud Joel would just look at me, but he never complained.  Joel is not much of a talker at the hospital and keeps much to himself, painting or playing.  When the little boy had his coat on and was headed home Joel had the biggest grin on his face. After they left with a smile on his face Joel said, “We finally got rid of that loud guy.”  It wasn’t long after that and Joel was sound asleep.  We had a nice quiet night. When Joel woke up on Friday morning he looked at me and whispered, “It’s quiet.”  It sure was.  We have had some interesting roommates over the last several months some we stay in touch with, some have been rather colourful but none have been louder then this little fellow was.